n. an ecclesiastical assembly of the monks in a monastery or even of the canons of a church

n. a local branch of some fraternity or association

n. a series of related events forming an episode

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

Middle English chaptre, variant of chapitre, chapter, chapiter, from Old French, alteration of chapitle, from Latin capitulum, diminutive of caput, head; see kaput- in Indo-European roots.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English chapiter, from Old French chapitre, from Latin capitulum ("a chapter of a book, in Medieval Latin also a synod or council"), diminutive of caput ("a head"); see chapiter and capital, which are doublets of chapter.

The title chapter "The Brothel Boy" is obviously meant to attract attention and titillate the reader, but it is a very closely reasoned account of a retarded boy in Burma in the 1920's who had been produced and sheltered in a brothel.